U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
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Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
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40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
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30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
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(R) Sheri Davis
40%
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(D) Brianna Titone
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CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
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CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
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CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
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(D) Jason Crow*
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
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State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
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DEMOCRATS
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95%
5%
September 03, 2009 06:49 PM UTC
53 Comments
The temptation is there to just say what the righties said to us so often during the Bush years — if you don’t like it here, then leave! But I’m not going to say that. For our system to work well, all sides need to be involved and to be heard.
But this is not constructive debate — it seems to be directed by assault-rifle-toting extremists on the right (at worst) or at best, people who only listen to the lies, distortions and brainwashing on Faux News.
I can’t imagine anyone suggesting to me during my growing up years that I shouldn’t go to school because of a speech by President Eisenhower or President Nixon. You’re correct, it’s not the country we live in anymore.
I’m with the Republicans and their response. What the hell, it would be easier for them to leave than for me to leave anyway…many of them already have offshore accounts anyway.
If they don’t like it, leave.
In fact, if we follow their lead we should say it loud and say it frequently, repeat it so often that it soon becomes the truth. Great visual — the crazies packing up and emigrating to . . . to . . . wherever they can go and contribute even less to society.
of them seem to think that we are a theocracy, I’d suggest Saudi Arabia.
So why did the Whitehouse make the changes on approach?
Because it would seem this was never actually about trying to surreptitiously warp the minds of young people, most of whom will never be able to vote for President Obama, even if they wanted to. Because teachers do a job that allows for a lot less nonsense than cable news pundits and if this is what it takes to get schools out of the echo chamber, so be it.
wanting a response from me, you are going to need to source something other than the PR arm of the RNC (Fox News).
They are not worth hitting the left click on my mouse…
It’s kind of sad to see that parents would get so wrapped up in this stuff that they would teach their children that if someone with different political views is speaking, don’t listen. Not just don’t listen to the opposing views, but don’t listen to the person, regardless of what he or she is talking about.
On the bright side, perhaps if this generation is taught from an early age they should be preparing for partisan warfare from the time of grade school, by the time they’re teenagers maybe they’ll rebel and decide to listen to and respect each other.
Accidental reverse psychology.
but gee, I wonder what it could be. Very mysterious and inscrutable, but of course obviously not even a little bit racist.
parents passing down to children.
developing a vaccine against racism – and while we’re at it, stupidity, violence, and susceptibility to brainwashing.
The ultra-right loonies should take a break. Obama’s not going to recruit their children into any clandestine left-wing group or force their children to become liberal Obama Youth.
Personally, I am not a big fan of our immediate past president, but when my kid heard him speak on the news and had questions, we would talk about it. I would prefer that my kid hear all sides of an issue and critically think about it rather than learn knee-jerk politics.
God forbid the next generation of Americans re-learn how to engage in constructive public-policy dialogue. It’s so much easier to scream and jump up and down behind the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Olbermann, and Maddow.
and I have absolutely no problem with President Obama addressing my kids anywhere he wants to.
As long as he doesn’t talk about the G.D. White Sox!
Frankly, I think it’s healthy for kids to hear from their president, governor, legislator, etc. I loved talking politics with my parents when I was a kid. They let me make up my own mind, and my kids can do the same. At least we’re talking.
Also, it’s silly to have permission slips for this activity.
Of course, a LOT of the teachers will swoon during the speech. So, it might be wise to have EMS personnel on stand by with the smelling salts.
And the parents in that district do not seem to trust the president to give an apolitical speech to children about the value of education and staying in school.
Based off of some of the reports that I have heard where the White House and the DOE have come up with lesson plans and assignments for the kids on how they are going to help the president and for teachers to hold them accountable later this year, I can’t say that I blame them all that much.
Now there are many on this site who will say that this is an apolitical speech, but I would disagree.
ANY speech made by the president is political in nature, and subject to interpretation.
Denver Broncos… Still Suck!
and so HALF the children of America should be hidden away when he or she speaks at any given time, based on party affiliation.
Come to think of it, I get a bit nervous about history class altogether, what with all the verbatim repetitions of what a bunch of politicians said before.
First they say no to President Obama’s speeches.
Pretty soon they’ll be saying that they can only talk about Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Next, they’ll say that JFK and LBJ are off limits because they didn’t really like their politics.
Finally they’ll say they can’t learn FDR in history class because he was a raving socialist.
At what point do you say that you don’t like the current president’s politics, but it’s the president, and it’s history, so let’s listen and use critical thinking to decide how we feel about their politics and policies?
Would you have been fine with President Bush giving a speech to schoolchildren and creating an associated lesson plan with assignments for the kids on how they are going to help the president?
Denver Broncos… Still Suck!
First of all, I watched a ton of Bush speeches in school, though it wasn’t necessarily coming from the Dept. of Education.
Second of all, if Bush was telling kids to work hard, get good grades, and make something of themselves, how could I have possibly argued with that?
Finally, here’s what I wrote in Aristotle’s diary:
The problem is that if it had come from Bush, these parents would have been mad at other parents who were keeping their kids home! It’s hypocrisy, and it’s grandstanding.
so…
I think kids whose parents don’t want them to hear the President speak to them about being a good student should come to class with guns and nazi signs and be disruptive.
Romanoff for CD1
That this is not what is happening. You’ve done a good job with Rush’s talking points, but haven’t provided a scintilla of evidence to prove that is what is happening here.
The President is talking to kids about how important school is. Oh, the horrors! Oh, the indoctrination!
That’s it. That’s all. But it’s Barack Obama, so it has got to be bad, right?
The problem is the idea that, as part of their duties as a loyal Democrat/Republican, parents should make sure that their children don’t listen to anyone that the parents don’t share political views with, regardless of what the person is actually saying.
That’s not about any particular speech, that’s about an approach to civil discourse that is becoming much too mainstream and says that if you disagree with me, the only time I’m going to be in the same room with you is to yell at you about something. The uncrossable line between conservatives and progressives is being drawn in more areas and with more force all the time, but there’s something particularly sad about the potential that it might cut across the schoolyard as well.
That was extremely well put.
In civics class you learn all about different political ideologies, presidents, government, and all the things that come with American politics (or politics in any country for that matter.)
Let me put this in perspective a bit, just to show you where I’m coming from on this issue; I was very right wing in high school. I was the kid who said that FDR bankrupted America by creating social security. That’s just the kind of guy I was. My dad felt the same way, and much of my political beliefs stemmed from his ultra-conservatism. I hated Clinton, and I thought “Democrat” was a bad word.
But at the same time, he made me watch the State of the Union addresses Clinton gave. He praised JFK, and said if the Democratic party was anything like JFK that he would be a Democrat. He would never have allowed me to stay home from school because of Clinton giving a speech–no matter how political it was or wasn’t. He taught me that critical thinking is important, and that you have to read and watch things that challenge your beliefs if you’re ever going to become a functioning member of society.
My dad and I don’t agree on politics any more, but he and I still believe in the same principles of hearing both sides of an issue and making up your mind after thinking about it critically.
Obama pledged during the campaign to work to stop the divisiveness of American politics. I think that things like this are part of his idea of how to do that. During the last eight years, it seemed like a lot of the divisiveness was coming from the White House–Bush, Rove, Cheney, etc.–but now it is becoming increasingly clear that it was far more ideology-based than it was because of any person or persons.
Why is it that when the ideas come from an opposing ideology its called brain washing? or Propaganda? or all these other loaded terms? I guess I’m just tired of using terms that don’t really seem to apply. Unless they start setting up strobes and bring in hypnotists or something, I’m going to be a little hesitant to call anything brain washing.
If the subject was “…work hard, do well in school, get good grades, stay in school, be a good citizen and or part of you community, do sport, stay fit and so on..”
When Reagan went OT in 88 and started talking about the magical power of lower taxes, that was understandable, but ultimately distracting. I was an economics grad student at the time, and teaching part time at an elementary schools near my college. We watched it, we dissected it, I was glad to have the chance.
I was sorry when Clinton and BushII didn’t do it.
I’m glad to hear Obama is going to do it. Make fun if you want, but it’s a big deal to school kids that our president takes an interest in what they are doing.
And he is our president. It’s our flag. It’s our country. and so on.
What bothers me- and CoPols gets this exactly right – is that we have somehow morphed into a us/them. This president isn’t my president.
The “Don’t blame me I didn’t vote for him” has been around a long time. But at the end of the day, you accepted the president as our president. You accepted your neighbor as your neighbor. We are the United States of America.
Yeah- it’s corny, but it’s true.
And when President Obama spoke after Iowa about how there are not red states and blues, but the United States, I cheered.
Students should do the schoolwork the teacher assigns. If the teacher assigns work with political implications and you happen to not agree with the politics, do your schoolwork. Deconstruct and object to the politics later.
I told my daughters to pay attention but not believe everything they heard. And that was it.
The lesson plans are typical.
see
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how…
And pretty basic stuff.
wouldn’t object if President Obama finished reading Bush’s “Pet Goat”? Or would the fringe loon Janet “Bestiality” Rowland assign some sexual innuendo spin to that?
No, not the Challenger speech. This one. (Actually I was a student when Reagan was President, but I don’t remember this being broadcast in my school.)
He also repeated the Laffer curve nonsense about tax cuts leading to lower deficits, after a Presidency which should have removed all doubt in anyone’s mind that this stupid idea had any legitimacy.
On the other hand, Barack Obama is black, so I guess both sides are equally bad.
…not deficits.
“It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point.” (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986)
Deficit = Revenue – Spending.
Reagan was asked about deficits, and he responded that tax cuts would increase revenue and therefore reduce the deficit.
This isn’t true, regardless of what Ben Stein said in a kids’ movie from the 80s.
Am I moving too fast for you?
I don’t think so.
In the 80’s, we didn’t have a revenue problem (they doubled under Reagan), we had a spending problem.
Ahem.
No and no.
Thanks sxp.
Killing popular myths with facts is a fun sport but don’t expect the ignorant to understand the difference between fact and fiction.
intended to show that you get less revenue when you raise taxes. You should hide those two columns that you Googled sxp.
I know you saw the byline “Krugman” and therefore didn’t bother to read them, but
1) Reagan raised taxes twice in the 80s
2) Revenues didn’t even come close to doubling, even without adjusting for inflation
3) Adjusting for inflation, revenues rose only slightly, due to the tax increases
The only other person, as far as I can tell, misinformed enough to think Reagan doubled revenue is Sean Hannity. Is that your source?
Cuz if so
then
Hahahahahahahahaha
that in fact, deficits do matter?
That we now know there were no WMD in Iraq?
That there are no death panels?
that Republicans live in a reality free universe so facts have no impact on their perceptions. Facts is facts unless your a Republican then they are just a nuisance to be waved away like a gnat. Who needs facts when you are talking about Saint Ronnie?
Of eyes glazing over. If I recall correctly from my school years, I would have listened to about a sentence and a half before I started passing notes with the kid sitting next to me. Today’s students must have a better attention span than I did, if their parents are so wound up about them being corrupted by a presidential speech.
is that after the inarticulate boob who recently occupied the White House, it is truly terrifying for Republicans to contemplate letting their children hear what a grown up and reasonable person sounds like. Think of the cognitive dissonance that little Cherry and Jimmy would be subjected to if they were to listen to someone encouraging them to become better educated. How would these little tykes reconcile such an event with the carefully inoculated belief that they are already superior in every regard to those disgusting black people. This is a cultural tsunami that must not be allowed. No wonder the wingers are threatening to start shooting any teacher who shows this speech.
…isn’t the real problem here the fact that education policies can now be made by phone-banking, rather than by the duly elected officials of the country?
This astroturf effort never got to the school boards (who, hopefully, would have killed it at the roots), and undercuts the President’s Constitutional duties to “faithfully execute” the educational policies enacted at ALL levels of our government.
Truancy is illegal, let the President use the bully pulpit to encourage students to follow the law, stay in school, and actually contribute to their society!
To say that people who are against this are racist, is a horrible generalization.
Many lefties are using the race lie to discredit good Americans who are expressing their concerns that the Obama administration trying to force its socialist agenda on them.
If Americans are so racist, how did Obama get elected in the first place ?
Many were duped by his smooth rhetoric, and have now discovered that his words do not match his deeds. Their disdain is for his actions not his race.
He has awoken many with his big government tax & spend agenda.
Former apathetic Americans have been pushed beyond their tolerance for Government
Buffoonery, and are expressing it .
The left who are trying to bring race into this are perpetrating a lie as they have no good defense for Obama’s deceptive actions..
I’ve never understood how people misspell “speech.” What’s up with that? It’s not like “Czechoslovakia” or something. The site even has a spell-checker built-in.
Via a majority who aren’t racist. Of course it’s not surprising at all that a minority of racists make a lot of stupid, stupid noise about him. They never voted for him in the first place.
Oddly enough, your user name is a racist slur for dark-skinned Hawaiians. Good thing you’re not a racist though, you piece of shit.
Poor Moke, he has his macaca moment right out of the box.
You’re not in any position to say lefties are lying when you are lying.
But the standard leftie response to health care legislation opposition is racism.
Hey, it beats reality. At least for the next 14 months.
You’re imagining things, LB.
The standard “leftie” response is to point out the rest of the industrialized world does it, giving them a competitive advantage.
And that it’s a moral question when the richest nation on the earth can’t keep its citizens healthy.
And that the health care industry (most of it) is spending $1.5 million a day to foment opposition, whipping righties into a frenzy with — well, let’s just call them lies.
And that a long-term fix to the economy requires fixing health care costs (which is as much a part of health care reform as universal coverage).
And that Democrats and Republicans thought this was a good idea and haggled over the details 35 years ago, but since then it’s been a political football the righties want to use to weaken Democrats, regardless of the affect on the economy or the nation’s health.
And that the centrist Democrats blocking a public option are bought and paid for by the insurance industry.
And that Americans love their Medicare, veterans love their VA, and the Swiss love their universal health care even though they were pretty much in our boat not long ago.